Christ in Our Midst: A Lenten Journey with our Homeless Sisters and Brothers
List of Speakers 
We invite you to make this Lenten journey with Christ as we seek to see him
in our homeless sisters and brothers. We offer many opportunities throughout the parish for each person to take part in this journey.
 
Below you will find prayer opportunities available throughout the Season of Lent at Holy Trinity. There are opportunities for reflection, prayer and worship, and education. You will also find weekly meditations and questions for reflection for each of the weeks of Lent.
 
Welcome to our Lenten Journey...
 
First Week of Lent
                                                   Reflection
Luke 4: 1-13
The gospel today is a familiar story.  In fact this is the same story which begins the Lenten season each year.  We hear how Jesus is led to the desert by the Holy Spirit, fasts, and at the end of 40 days, is tempted by the devil.  We see that Jesus responds to the devil’s challenges in a very human way, by remaining focused on his true self and his relationship with the God. That is the purpose of Christ’s time in the desert, to get to know who he is and what it is he has come to do.
 
As we begin our Lenten journey this year we are invited to  ponder anew who we are and what it is we are called to do.  This Lenten season Holy Trinity combined ministries has prepared special opportunities that invite us to experience “Christ as he is in our midst today, in our homeless sisters and brothers.” Through participation in these opportunities we might deepen our experience of Christ. 
 
                                                   Meditation
Can we discover who it is God calls us to be with a greater clarity by walking with those we might not ordinarily “see?”
 
We too are led by the Holy Spirit, invited to a place of prayer, to fast, to examine our relationship with God. Which of the opportunities offered throughout this Lenten season may enable you to move closer to your true self in Christ?
 
 
Second Week of Lent
                                                   Reflection
Luke 9: 28b-36
“Who is Jesus?” This question is a central one in Luke's Gospel this week. The response appears to arise in the context of shared prayer. In this space and this openness to God's communication, the disciples are enabled to see Jesus’ full glow. Jesus is trans-figured and named by God as the Chosen One even in relation to past prophets Moses and Elijah.
 
Today we may still wonder about this question, “who is Jesus?” We are also called to a shared prayer. Yet, we also need to have our prayerful hearts oriented by our daily practices so that we can see the “glow” of Jesus. The disciples had just finished feeding the hungry in Luke's Gospel and Jesus had just explained to them that to follow him, they must be willing to “take up their cross daily” and “lose their lives for his sake,” i.e. in the way of love Jesus lived.
 
Engaging in direct service, such as feeding the hungry, is an integral part of these daily practices that orient our hearts to see Christ in our Midst. Our focus on our homeless sisters and brothers this Lent offers us space to cultivate such practices, in part to know “who is Jesus.” As Jesus’ body was trans-figured, direct service draws us into the bodily element of Christian discipleship. We become the kinds of people more enabled to offer our lives as Jesus did, challenging social injustice by nonviolently loving friends, strangers, and enemies. Then we bask in the “glow” of Jesus and of Easter.
 
                                                  Meditation
What images, feelings, and words arise as you consider the question “who is Jesus?”
 
How do your regular practices reveal or obscure the “glow” of Jesus?
 
What is God’s loving invitation for you now?
 
 
Third Week of Lent
                                                   Reflection
Luke 13: 1-9
The first two events reported in this gospel reading involve tragic death, and Jesus makes absolute that unless we repent, we also will die.  Then, in the parable of the gif tree, Jesus reveals the patience of God with us, despite our slowness to repent.
 
We see how merciful God is!  This is God’s work of mercy: to take what is almost dead and coax it to new life.  This is our work of repentance: to turn from sinfulness toward God’s transforming love and mercy.
 
                                                     Meditation
Where are the places in my life that I need God’s mercy?
 
Have each of us taken the time during this Lenten Season to reflect on those places of sin in our lives, and to ask for God’s transforming love to continue to change us?
 
Tragedy survived is often experienced as a “wake-up call.”  Lent, with its call to repentance, affords us the same reappraisal of what really leads us to new life, and what is really important.
 
 
Fourth Week of Lent
                                                   Reflection
Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32
In the story of the Prodigal son, love and reconciliation are overflowing in the father’s words and actions! The father wants a relationship with his absent son so much, that he keeps a vigil, waiting for his son to come home. He catches sight of him and looks deeply as the younger son approaches. The father is filled with compassion - what does the father see? Does he see a struggling human being?
 
The father runs to his son, puts his arms around him and kisses him. He doesn’t ask where the money has gone … he doesn’t judge; he welcomes his son back with a loving smile and a warm and meaningful embrace. The father tells the servants - prepare a feast! The father doesn’t stop there. He tries to be a reconciling presence with his older son. He demonstrates that love does not count how often we and others fail; rather love seeks to draw us and restore us to right relationships. We are invited to love as God loves and to be a reconciling presence in our families, our parish, our country and our world.
 
                                                    Meditation
As you reflect on your experience of being with our homeless sisters and brothers for the past two weeks…
 
Do you remember being filled with compassion in the presence of another struggling human being? 
 
Where are you being invited to love as the prodigal father loves?
 
As Paul suggests, how are you an ambassador for Christ?
 
 
Fifth Week of Lent
                                                   Reflection
Luke 2: 41-51a
Today’s readings tell the story of Jesus and the woman who was accused of adultery.  Imagine what it might have been like for this woman, to stand in the middle of a group of men who are accusing her of adultery. According to Jewish custom, she ought to be stoned to death.  How frightened and embarrassed she must have been. (There is no mention, however, of the other person who was participating in the act of adultery.)
 
Can you hear the anger in the scribes’ and Pharisees’ accusatory voices? Were they jealous? Can you sense the agitation and air of superiority in the group? How easy it is for us to forget our own sins and our sinfulness!
 
Contrast this atmosphere with the presence of Jesus, who is accepting, loving, and peaceful. The woman stands before Jesus, as he asks, “Has no one condemned you?” She replies, “No one sir.” Then Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you…”
 
                                                  Meditation
Do you notice when you judge another human being who is different from you?
 
If you judge the other person in thought, word or deed, how aware are you at the time, of your own failings?
 
How is God inviting you become more accepting and loving of others and yourself, more like Jesus?
 
 
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion and Holy Week
                                                  Reflection
Luke 19: 28-40
On five occasions in Luke’s passion account Jesus is declared innocent (three times by Pilate, once by the Good Thief, once by the centurion at the foot of the cross).  Jesus died, not because of guilt, but out of love.  Jesus freely gave his life, as self-gift, because of love.
 
Jesus’ compassion was so total that he willingly emptied himself “to the point of death.”  We enter into this holiest week of the year, praying that we too may learn to live as people who “empty ourselves” for the sake of others.
 
Throughout this Lenten Season we have focused on those who have very little, the poor, the homeless, the needy.  As we draw this season to a close, and anticipate the joy of Easter that is upon us, let us reflect on how we have focused our self-giving for others, and how we can continue that
self-giving throughout the year.
 
                                                  Meditation
How have I participated in and been changed by the experiences of this Lent?
 
How have I seen Christ in the poor?  The homeless? 
 
How will I continue to give of my self, following the example of Jesus, as we go forward into the celebration of Easter?